It has been a busy few months for augmented reality (AR) eye-wear creators Vuzix. From August we saw them team with Amimon where their tech was used in drone racing, went to CEDEC and IFA , they released a new driver for head-tracking and added support for SteamVR. Their new M300 AR Smart Glasses have moved into the shipping stage, we’ve even seen the technology shown off on a couple of occasions. They’ve moved into new partnerships as well.
On Friday however the company released a new statement announcing the end of a new funding round. As part of their efforts to acquire funding which the company says is for supporting it’s production and distribution of the aforementioned M300 series of smart glasses as well as the M3000 line, development of Vuzix’s proprietary waveguide technology as well as for what it terms “general corporate purposes”. Two million shares in the company were offered up for sale generating $13.6 million (USD) in net revenue following the reduction from an initial $14.5 million (USD) owing to fees.
Vuzix looks set to move into 2017 in a strong position with products at the ready and capital to back it up. They’re excited about the prospects as well. Paul J. Travers, President and Chief Executive Officer of Vuzix spoke on the matter last month.
“We envision many uses for AR both for enterprise, as well as for gamers and consumers generally. We at Vuzix have long believed that AR is the future and that it will have a tremendous impact on corporations and consumers.”
And speaking on the product line back in September commented that “Our VIPs are developing applications in most of the key enterprise markets for smart glasses. Being the world’s first second generation smart glasses, and having the advanced features set requested by our large installed base of M100 customers, sets the M300 apart from the competition. Finally, enterprises have a solution that is deployable for volume applications.”
VRFocus will continue to bring you more news and updates on Vuzix’s future plans as we move from 2016 into 2017.